The IT industry in Nigeria is aided by the use of application software which include word processors, web browsers, graphics, database, spreadsheet, presentation, enterprise, and content access software. These application software aid productivity and effectiveness in the tech space. Sadly, most persons in the Nigerian IT space mostly run their operations on pirated software.

Software piracy has economic implications ranging from a slowdown in economic development to decline in businesses. 

A report by MUSO suggested that the rate of software piracy hit a 13.1% increase worldwide in 2021 when compared with the previous year. Web downloading was the most popular delivery method, accounting for 73.5% of traffic, with public torrents accounting for 24.5%.

Freelancers are the main perpetrators of this unethical and illegal act. Many of them see pirated software as a means to an end—a tool to deliver the next meal to their table. They care less about the intricacies of a software’s legal use. The idea of purchasing licensed software is irrational to them. A Microsoft Office Suite package subscription costs $33 (~₦23,000), which is more than the national minimum wage in Nigeria.

Another factor contributing to the peddling of pirated software in Nigeria is users’ obliviousness to copyright laws that guide the use of these software. These copyright laws consist of rules, copyrights, trademarks, and patents that guide the acquisition of permission for use of a software. Some software may require specific payments or royalties before they can be used.

Unfortunately, this is not taken seriously in the Nigerian market. Computer Village, an ICT accessory market in Lagos Nigeria, is a den where groups of clannish merchants congregate to sell pirated software. Some of these pirated software come with viruses and other malware, which can harm the end user’s devices and compromise their private data and information.

In more advanced societies, the use of pirated software is a crime. However, the Nigerian Copyright Act of 2004 is clearly outdated and provides no protection and security for intellectual property owners in this current information age.

The copyright act only vaguely addresses digital-related and intellectual property copyrights law. There is no punishment for pirating software.

Nigeria needs more strengthened laws to address digital copyrights.

With software piracy prevalent in the country, it is only right to proffer a solution that could curb it: online application software. 

Online application software only require access to the internet for use and are sometimes free.

Some of these alternative application software are:

Word processing

Google Docs Editors suite

Google Docs Editors is a web-based productivity office suite offered by Google within its Google Drive service. The suite includes Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites, and Google Keep.

Google Docs Editors offers the functionalities of the traditional Microsoft Office Suite. It runs over the internet and is free to use. It also requires no licensing. One benefit of using Google Docs over Microsoft Office is its security feature: only people you have given access can see your documents.

Also, the collaboration feature allows for multiple users to edit and collaborate on a document in real time. Google Docs can be accessed at any time from any device that has a web browser. The auto-save feature is a standout feature for Google Docs; all files are automatically stored on Google Drive. Users can access their files regardless of the device from which they log in.

Photo Manipulation

Figma

Figma is a web-based vector graphics editor and prototyping tool for designers. It enables collaboration amongst designers and is available on the Windows, Linux, macOS, and Chrome OS. It is perhaps an even better tool than Photoshop and CorelDRAW.

Operating Software

Ubuntu, Fedora, and Linux

In comparison to traditional Windows operating systems, Linux, Fedora, and Ubuntu are less vulnerable and more secure.

Furthermore, these operating system alternatives are open-source software, which means that end users can freely copy, modify, and redistribute them.

The cost of purchasing licensed software in Nigeria can be steep. However, a “group purchase” can ease the financial burden. A few people can come together to contribute towards the purchase of a licensed software product. That way, the cost is shared amongst its members.

That is quickly changing, however, as a global tech talent scarcity increases. The IMF estimates that by 2030, there will be a shortage of over 85 million tech workers across the world. This has put African developers in high demand and fueled the growth of several talent accelerators on the continent.

Ydev Academy, a Lagos-based tech talent accelerator focused on the African market, trains students and professionals who wish to transition into the tech industry in a variety of skills, and links its graduates to job opportunities at local and international tech companies. 

Founded in 2019 by Bernard Okobiemen (O’Bien), a veteran software engineer, and IT entrepreneur Wilson Diamond, Ydev also helps organisations and corporate entities train, retrain and upskill their employees, as well as provides companies support while onboarding new hires. 

In all, it aims to “transform up to 100,000 young adults” on the continent within the next five years.

“We are aware of the high demand for tech talents in today’s world and deeply concerned about the lack of candidates to fill these roles,” O’Bien told TechCabal in an interview. “This has made us build a strong curriculum delivered by expert-level instructors and provide world-class education facilities and placement support for our students.”

Partnerships are central to Ydev’s plan to realise its grand vision. The likes of IBM, Google, and Microsoft are among the more than 15 global technology giants the company has partnered with and which its top graduates work at.

“Our best graduating students receive strategic placements within our partner organisations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America,” O’Bien said. “We ensure that no talent is lost.”

The most recent collaboration was with American enterprise software company, Salesforce, under which Ydev is expected to train and certify 4,000 Africa-based developers in Salesforce technologies as well as connect them with global opportunities. Earlier this year, Ydev trained over 2,000 people across five countries in the continent for Microsoft Africa.

“At Ydev, we know there are many pathways into the technology industry and into our partner organisations,” explained O’Bien, who started writing codes at the age of 17 and has more than a decade of experience working in financial services, fintech, telecoms, SMEs and startups.

“We’re constantly looking for new ways to create unconventional entry points for talent outside the traditional academic paths.” One of these entry points is the Salesforce Developer Certification, which is based on Salesforce’s Trailhead learning platform and Ydev’s training course. 

An African solution to a global problem

O’Bien describes the partnership as “an exciting opportunity” for tech enthusiasts across Africa. Rightly so, Salesforce is the largest player in the cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) space and saw a 30% boom in global demand in 2020. 

“It will forge new pathways to tech careers in Africa and help bridge the gap between skills demand and supply,” he said. But why are global tech giants increasingly looking to Africa to solve the tech talent shortage? 

Africa is predicted to soon have the world’s largest and youngest workforce and is currently home to some of the fastest-growing internet economies in the world.

“The potential is here,” O’Bien said. “Africans are more than capable and you see quite a number of tech companies setting up engineering teams in Nigeria and Africa at large.”

In addition to feeding foreign workforces with tech talents, Ydev’s model has the added effect of catalysing the growth of Africa’s tech ecosystems, given that its skilled graduates remain on the continent as they typically work remotely, thereby avoiding brain drain.

According to the company, its graduates are known for quickly ramping and hitting quotas 25% faster, setting records over 200% on monthly attainment, and receiving company awards.

“Employers get skilled engineers who already have experience in supporting other applications across different time zones and support structures,” O’Bien said.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) expects about 230 million jobs across Africa to require some level of digital skills by 2030. While this need has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Africa lags when it comes to requisite educational infrastructure.

Companies like Ydev are crucial to preparing the continent’s youthful population for a tech-driven world.

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Not only did he swap the uncertainty of tech media for the vulnerability of founding a tech startup, he chose Ile-Ife, a town 200 km removed from the chaos of Lagos, as the “quiet location” for his new adventure.

Yusuf, along with one Jobberman co-founder and a couple other people, started TalentQL, an outsourcing firm for companies in need of quality software developers. 

“Hire top vetted technical talent across Africa quickly and seamlessly,” their website says. Part of the plan was to produce talents by building campuses that house co-working spaces, with dependable electricity and Internet. 

Of course this is no longer a novel startup idea. Indeed it might appear late in the day to be getting into the “tech talent matching” game. Andela, one might say, has been there, done that. There probably isn’t much mineral left in that mine.

But Yusuf thinks there is and has garnered resources to explore the endless possibilities that exist in the ecosystem. They launched last November with $300,000 seed money from Zedcrest Capital, Kola Aina of Ventures Platform and Prosper Otemuyiwa, a co-founder at Eden. In March this year, they got accepted into Techstars Toronto.

Yusuf is “convinced that what we are doing at TalentQL will change the African talent landscape. We believe that talent is Africa’s greatest export and as such needs to be developed and refined.”

All well and good. But what kind of talent are we exporting and why does it need to be refined? The answer has come nearly eight months after launch.

Meet “Pipeline by TalentQL“

This week, TalentQL has announced a “specialised training program for Software Engineers in Africa.” It is coolly named Pipeline by TalentQL.

The program is for mid-level African software engineers, defined by TalentQL as those with three years work experience. In six intensive months, each of them will access “advanced resources” and will be mentored by top senior software engineers working in global organisations like Twitter, Tesla, Gitlab, Amazon and Google.

According to Yusuf, the program is necessary because up to 90% of TalentQL’s clients want senior software engineers. Africa may have about 700,000 professional software developers but many are not experienced enough to meet global demand.

That’s a familiar line for anyone who has followed Andela’s story. Once the poster child of African tech for organising bootcamps that churned out junior developers at no initial cost, Andela hit the reality-check button in September 2019. 

For a period of nine months to May 2020, Andela laid off more than 500 junior to mid level developers as they trimmed down to focus on senior talent. They have now expanded their talent pool to include Latin America to more ably serve the senior talent need that Africa alone cannot solve.

On one hand, TalentQL’s Pipeline is a welcome plan to plug the experience gap in Africa by upskilling mid-level engineers. Yusuf insists Pipeline isn’t for juniors – while the likes of Decagon and Semicolon serve as entry points for novices.

TalentQL’s promise with the program is that those who participate can expect to gain skills that will make them highly valued by employers. In addition to technical competence, Pipeline participants will be taught important soft skills.

Their mission comes from a good place but will it work?

Senior developers are not a monolith

To get a sense of what to expect from Pipeline, I asked Sheriff Shittu, who runs a platform for developers seeking jobs, for his thoughts. His first inquiry was to know if the intensive program will involve live projects.

While a training can make developers more knowledgeable, it may not immediately translate to experience and readiness for senior roles.

But “if I work on high-impact fast live projects, my growth will be faster than someone who lets on select projects for two years,” Shittu says.

For a senior developer at a Nigerian fintech, these four pillars are necessary for maturity: communication, problem solving, mentorship abilities, and ownership.

“I have been a good communicator from day one of my job, but my problem-solving abilities were not as good as they are now. If you become good at solving problems independently then you can take ownership.”

Does he think Pipeline’s six-month program will get mid-level devs to the senior ladder? “It depends, people are different.”

Inviting similar upskilling initiatives

Keeping both options in view, it is possible for TalentQL to achieve its purpose with this program if it meets a threshold for practicality and participants can meaningfully accelerate their communication and problem solving expertise.

The other implication is that Pipeline won’t be open to just any mid-level engineer who has worked for three years. There will be a screening process to choose only those who want to “make the jump to become Senior Software Developers,” Yusuf says.

Which, as you may have deduced, means that solving Africa’s shortage of senior developers will require more than one training of this sort. 

Decagon, which aims to train 10,000 developers in 10 years, currently graduates about 100 juniors a year from its campus. It is reasonable to expect a lower figure from TalentQL’s Pipeline.

Yet, it could be a valuable experiment for the ecosystem in training senior developers. 

It is a free program that hopes to get returns when participants find senior work; that might be a questionable tactic seeing it didn’t work for Andela. But the justification here is that there is enough demand to absorb people who graduate. 

If that proves to be true, it won’t be long before competitors arise to get a share of the Pipeline pie.

Born and raised in New York, Braimah had an early insight into how design works by observing similarities between the architecture of lower-income housing and prisons. It seemed she would study architecture but that required physics which she “failed woefully” in architecture school. 

Architecture’s loss was computer science’s gain, though.

Now that she’s been a designer at Netflix for nearly five years, helping other people realise their design dreams is one of Braimah’s passions. Being of Nigerian descent, Africa became her choice for the project. She named it Kimoyo, a Bantu word that translates to “of the spirit.”

In 2019, the Kimoyo Fellowship held its first cohort of product design training. Over 500 people applied for a 3-month curriculum in graphic design and design thinking. They were mentored by product designers at Airbnb, Twitter and Facebook. 

The five fellows selected were paired with two mentors: one from the US and one from Nigeria.

Although Braimah is based in San Francisco, she collaborates with Namnso Ukpanah, a product designer at Flutterwave, to drive Kimoyo on the ground in Nigeria.

They have launched applications for their 2nd cohort this month. And instead of making it just for Nigerians, Kimoyo has opened up to people in Ghana, Kenya & Rwanda. (It ends on Monday, May 3rd, so apply now!). 

Kimoyo’s 2nd cohort, just like their 1st, will be a three-month programme of paced virtual learning. Once the programme wraps up, its participants will qualify for entry-level jobs at Nigerian tech companies.

To be sure, the fellowship is not for people beginning from scratch. Some familiarity with tools and a basic understanding of design is necessary. Otherwise, Kimoyo wants to reach everyone.

Because it is a full-time programme, learners get a weekly stipend and a monthly wi-fi allowance. The first two months are for learning and testing. The last month explores the intersection between the product and business sides by working on real-world problems.

What is the big picture for Braimah?

On a call, she tells me that Kimoyo started to answer questions people were asking her about ways to start a career in product design. 

Transforming that medium into a formal learning organisation was partly motivated by Andela, she says. Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, one of Andela’s co-founders, is an advisor for the Kimoyo Fellowship.

At a deeper level, though, Braimah wants to diversify the global design community. She wants to see more Africans in the space, permeating hallowed design rooms at Apple and Airbnb and other famed design-led companies.

And if you are going to do that sort of thing, why not in Africa? 

Braimah thinks the design community in Nigeria today is where San Francisco’s was 8-10 years ago. But rapid growth is happening with the rise of startup and design culture in Lagos. Kimoyo adds to a growing list of communities centred around design, such as Usable, forLoop, Asacoterie, and Figma Africa.

Rather than see this as competition, Braimah is convinced that more, not less, design groups are needed to build a solid base in the ecosystem.

“All of these communities need to co-exist because they offer different values. People are being exposed to different design opportunities,” Braimah says.

Her plans go beyond periodic training, though. Apart from the fellowship, Braimah has built one product design facility that could add more professionalism and efficiency to how tech products are created in Africa.

Testing with Kimoyo Insights

Product managers will tell you that user testing is a critical cog in the product development process. But how do you test product prototypes in a way that is objective and non-intrusive for users? 

Braimah’s answer is Kimoyo Insights, a web platform that came out of private beta at the end of March. The platform is designed to help “Take the wahala out of getting quality feedback & user testers within the continent.”

On the platform, product teams can indicate what type of testers they want by filling out a survey. Kimoyo does the work of scheduling the participants and can conduct interviews on behalf of product teams if requested. Individuals can sign up to be testers (I have!)

It speaks to Braimah’s long-term view of what the product development space in Nigeria can become that she committed to building this. 

The fellowship application comes and goes, but Kimoyo Insights will always be available to make a difference in how useful and usable African tech products are.

It speaks to Braimah’s long-term view of what the product development space in Nigeria can become that she committed to building this. 

The fellowship application comes and goes, but Kimoyo Insights will always be available to make a difference in how useful and usable African tech products are.

Let’s export African design

Ukpanah, the designer at Flutterwave, is immersed in the Nigerian design community and believes growth is happening. Product interfaces and experience designs are more considerate of users. He wants a design-led approach to be used to rethink the healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

At the moment, most people take their design cues from products built by the likes of Apple and Spotify. Are we going to see Africa make products that define how the world thinks about design in tech?

“Yes and that time is rapidly approaching,” Braimah says, mentioning that Paystack’s design is as good if not better than Stripe’s.

One could say that’s the spirit that lifts Africa. It’s up to designers that are “of the spirit” to push for that destination.

Andela confirms that this opportunity is open to Africans and non-Africans in those regions.

Jeremy Johnson, the company’s CEO, says the decision “has always been part of our long term roadmap, and we’re excited that the world is ready for it.”

He describes the move as a reflection of the “future of work,” one that is remote and not restricted by geographical boundaries or a need to share physical spaces.

In July 2020, Andela closed its physical offices in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda to become a fully remote company. The particular rationale at the time was to increase the number of Africans who could apply to work for the company as software developers. 

While the pandemic’s restriction on physical movement influenced that change in policy, there was some logic to it. Andela’s physical offices were sited only in major cities in each country they operated (Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala; their Cairo operation was remote-first from day one). Anyone who wanted to be an Andela developer had to move to these cities. 

By going remote, a qualified developer anywhere in Africa could apply to Andela. At the time, Johnson said it opened Andela up to 500,000 potential engineers from the previous 250,000 available under a physical-office model. 

However, the remote logic was destined to extend naturally; if going remote opens Andela up to more African developers, it also opens them up to developers everywhere in the world.

In the past six months, Andela says it has witnessed a 750% increase in applications from qualified engineers outside of Africa. More than 30% of inbound applications in March 2021 alone were from outside of Africa; half of that 30% were from Latin America, according to the company.

Latin and South American countries are Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from Mexico on the southern border of the United States, through Colombia and Brazil to Chile and Argentina. 

Andela frames this diverse base as an advantage for their clients. 

Companies who have people from different geographies on their engineering teams stand to get the benefit of diverse backgrounds, lived experiences and approaches to work that improve the quality of their products.

According to a Jobberman statement, Rosiji will “continue the work of establishing Jobberman as the primary platform for job searching, talent acquisition and transforming workplace productivity across Nigeria.”

She takes over the reins from Hilda Kragha who was CEO for 18 months until she was appointed as managing director of ROAM Africa’s Jobs across Africa last October. ROAM Africa, which owns a suite of online marketplaces across Africa, acquired Jobberman in 2012.

Jobberman continues its evolution from a founder-led company to one principally driven by its parent company’s strategic goals. 

It was founded in 2009 by three Nigerian undergraduates to cater to companies’ demand for quality employees and fill the job search gap in Nigeria. 

In the decade since then, the company has weathered competition from online and offline startups, and remains a go-to source for talent and employment for job seekers and employees alike. ROAM Africa oversaw Jobberman’s acquisition of NG Careers last year, consolidating its leadership at the apex of Nigeria’s recruitment-tech space.

Africa’s working-age population is expected to grow by 450 million people by 2035 but the continent needs between 12 to 15 million jobs annually to match its expanding labour force. 

Underemployment amongst Nigerian youth between 15 – 34 years rose to 57% in Q2 2020, according to Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics.

Despite a rapid rise in global platforms matching talent to jobs – LinkedIn, Fiverr, Stack Overflow Jobs, GitHub – there remains an opportunity for Africa-conscious solutions for the broader problem of creating a talent pipeline for startups and established companies.

“I don’t believe that international one-size-fits-all solutions are a good fit for African markets and employers,” ROAM Africa CEO Clemens Weitz, told TechCabal last year.

Until her appointment, Rosiji was the Nigeria country manager for M-KOPA, an asset-financing platform with operations across East Africa, and Nigeria. Her mandate will be to lead Jobberman’s ambitions to deepen the use of tech in solving unemployment challenges in Nigeria.

“I look forward to steering the company vision to build a market of greater technology adoption, democratic access and transparency that will tackle dominant challenges, notably youth unemployment and underemployment,” she said.

Jobberman says Rosiji’s focus will be to “broaden the impact beyond the white-collar space and continue to work closely with Jobberman’s impact partners in tackling youth unemployment in Nigeria.”

One of those partners is the Mastercard Foundation with whom Jobberman aims to upskill 5 million young Nigerians in five years. 

—

Over the last three years, Mitchelle Chibundu’s product design career has made her an influential member of Nigeria’s design community. On Instagram, she publishes bite-size lessons and tips on key concepts like typography, colour and lines.

But this influence wasn’t inevitable. On her first day as a product designer, she had exactly zero experience in the field. 

“I didn’t even know what product design was until I started working at Flutterwave,” she says to TechCabal.

Her experience was more in make-up art than in computer design. Foundation and eyeliners, not fonts and line spacing, were her area of expertise. 

She’s now a leading light in the Nigerian design community. Tapping into her experience so far, Chibundu has written a short book for people aspiring to get into the product design field too. 

Clueless to Designer is not an introductory design textbook with academic definitions and convoluted charts. It is not a deep dive into the history or evolution of product design. Thankfully, it’s also not a showy highlight reel of the author’s brief career.

Instead, Chibundu wrote it to answer the most popular questions she was receiving on her Instagram page from mostly young African women. 

These women (and men) were enamoured of her ability to explain product design concepts in simple terms and felt the urge to become not just hearers but doers. 

An invitation to product curiosity

When trying to explain their work, developers and designers often get lost in the jargon of it and lose their audience. 

There is a temptation to show off technical prowess while failing to convey the real world, blood-and-bone stakes involved. Have you ever asked a developer to explain what an API is?

To Chibundu’s credit, Clueless to Designer starts off simply and proceeds gently so that anyone can go through its 60 pages without getting dizzy. 

On the contrary, you get the feeling of being invited into the easiest tech discipline in the world. The crux of the book is that a natural curiosity for improving the human experience is the first and most important requirement.  

In simple language that appeals to non-technical beginners, it covers three areas of product design curiosity: what a product designer does, the soft and hard competencies required to become one, and a curriculum for beginners.

“Product designers advocate for the users and also have a clear understanding of the business values,” she says. 

I believe this to be the strongest point of the book because it captures the essence of the discipline in a way every intending designer can understand. It is also a handy tool for consumers of tech to assess why startups opt for certain features on the products they roll out.

What good product designers do

At its root, a product designer’s job is to care enough about users that they invest considerable thought in ensuring users live better as a result of using the product. 

It’s a state of mind that must be cultivated consciously. Newbies can learn some aspects of this, but like other fields of life, a relish for quality design comes from within. Chibundu says 14 skills are needed for the job.

That might seem like a lot, maybe even intimidating for a beginner. But they could be summarised in two buckets: being able to understand human feelings, and having an eye for satisfying those feelings with a set of intuitive instructions. 

Qualities like empathy, problem-solving, curiosity and storytelling are in the first bucket, while wireframing, prototyping, UX design, and usability testing are in the second. 

Chibundu tells me she consciously listed the soft skills (empathy, etc) first because they are the qualities that make good designers, differentiating those who care about people from those who simply want to push a minimum viable product.  

She clarifies, that while it’s not necessary to have all of these skills at once before stepping into product design, they will eventually need to be in the designer’s toolbox. So how to step in?

A guide for beginners

In one of the only two charts in the book, Chibundu shows what she thinks produces “great” product design; a mix of consciousness, consideration, and craft. 

In other words, an awareness of one’s environment, good taste, and good old practice. How each designer becomes good at these will differ according to the resources they consult for guidance and inspiration.

In the absence of the formal design schools and courses that are found in America, most product designers at African tech companies have had to teach themselves using YouTube videos and online courses. Self-tutoring is also how most people become frontend developers.

Because the search online for resources can overwhelm beginners, Chibundu ends the book with a curriculum that covers the 14 skills.

Far from being an exhaustive list of resources, she drafts it to set new designers on a path that narrows down what they need to learn, to allocate time and brainpower effectively. 

Chibundu’s book was well received by some of her colleagues in Nigeria’s product design community. She deserves credit for applying her own ideas of simplicity and relatability in producing it. 

It’s a concise explainer that could become the go-to reference for everyone who wants to become a product designer, or simply an advocate for the design needs of users everywhere.

A lot has changed since Andela boiled the proverbial ocean. With the mantra “talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not,” it welcomed its first cohort of aspiring developers over five years ago. 

Although it no longer focuses primarily on training developers as a result of a change in business model, its impact remains. When it closed a $100 million Series D funding in 2019, it had trained and was managing 1,100 software developers.

Today, there are at least 25 companies* in Nigeria’s technical talent sector according to TechCabal’s research. These companies can generally be classified into the following categories; training companies, tech communities, training initiatives, government programs, talent outsourcing and technical software support.

Together, the skills or talent that these companies develop or manage fall into three major categories; developers, maintainers (DevOps engineers & other IT skills) and support.

For the purpose of this article, the technical talent landscape comprises organizations, startups, initiatives and communities who either support, train, recruit or supply technical talent. Universities and traditional tertiary institutions have been omitted for the purpose of this article.

Training Companies
The majority of organizations in the sector fall into this category. The category comprises companies whose business models revolve around training individuals to code or to acquire other technical skills. They typically make a fee from the training or ask individuals to repay their tuition fees after they get a job. Some of the organizations in the category include Decagon, Semicolon, Utiva and Univelcity.

Spotlight: Decagon
Decagon was founded in 2018 and has a goal to train 10,000 developers over the coming decade. Its training lasts for six months and comprises over 1,800 hours of immersive learning, 240 hours of code reviews, and 600 hours of live projects.

Candidates who take up the complete training package  – boarding, daily feeding, and a monthly ₦40,000 ($110) stipend – and get a job afterwards are expected to pay back ₦3 million ($8,200) over a maximum period of 3 years. As of February 2020, Decagon had accepted 103 individuals in four cohorts and has had a 100% success rate in placing members of its first two cohorts.

Tech Communities
This category comprises developer groups that are either community-driven, backed by big tech companies or startups. Some community-driven groups include forLoop Africa and AI Saturdays. 

Devcenter is a tech community comprising 9,000 technical professionals. It is driven by a startup with the same name. Tech communities backed by big tech companies include Google Developer Groups. These communities organize events that are typically the window for students and other individuals to become developers. Some of them organize trainings that teach technical skills.

Spotlight: forLoop Africa
forLoop Africa was founded in 2016 by Ridwan Olalere and has held hundreds of meetups, trainings and hackathons yearly. As of March 2019, the non-profit had a 2,500 user-strong Slack community and several chapters across eight African nations including Nigeria. It has been described as the largest developer group in the country. forLoop supports aspiring developers at the earliest stages of their career while connecting them with a larger community.

Training Initiatives
These are training programs that are contributing significantly to creating software developers. In many cases, they are not money-making initiatives and are typically a social project by big tech companies, startups or individuals. Their impact on the country’s talent pipeline is a major criterion for their inclusion in this category. 

Some of the initiatives in this category include HNG Internship Program by Hotels.ng and the Andela Learning Community. Programs focused on children and teenagers can also be included in this category.

Spotlight: HNG Internship Program
The program was initially created by hotel booking startup, Hotels.ng in 2016 as a funnel to find pro developers. It eventually opened up the program by supplying developers to other organizations. As of July 2018, the program had completed four editions with over 7,000 participants. The fourth edition, HNG Internship 4.0 was done in partnership with Oracle, Figma and Bluechip Technologies. That edition had 8,000 applicants, 3,000 of those were active while 28 eventually completed the program.

Government Programs
Training initiatives backed by the government including Code Lagos and the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) are also an integral part of the sector. While the LSETF works with several partners to provide young people of employable age with technology skills, CodeLagos teaches coding skills to children at the primary school level.

Spotlight: LSETF’s Lagos Innovates Talent Development Program
LSETF’s Lagos Innovates Talent Development Program was launched in partnership with Honeywell Group in 2019 and the program engaged Univelcity and NESA by Makers Academy to provide training in frontend design & engineering, python programming for web and data science, full-stack development with JavaScript and full-stack development for mobile applications.

When the program launched, there were about 200 applications. After pretests and interviews, only 18 of those made it into the program. Some of the people from the first cohort work for organizations such as PwC, Chekkit Technologies, AJO Card, etc.

Asides the Lagos Innovates Talent Development Program, the LSETF also has an Employability program which provides technical skills training. According to Oluwaseyi Ladejobi, Head of Employability, the program has trained 226 young people in Digital Skills, out of which 100 were enrolled for UI/UX. It has also matched 52% of them with jobs, while about 5% are currently self-employed . This year, it expects to train 150 people in a new partnership with Lofty Inc Allied Partners. Backed by the USADF, modules will include Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Cyber Security and Software Engineering.

Talent Outsourcing
Since it pivoted its business model, observers and pundits have struggled to continue to categorize Andela as a training or education company. Although it continues to train coders, its business model no longer depends on training. Andela now finds and recruits the best senior developers and connects them with foreign companies who need them. This fits neatly into the talent outsourcing category. Goodtalent and Findworka are some of the other companies that can be classified as talent outsourcing companies.

Software Support Companies
In Nigeria today, Tek Experts and some business process outsourcing companies are in this category. They serve the most important segment; end-users. Many end-users of software products typically run into issues that require deep technical skill to resolve them. This is the gap software support companies fill. 

While the companies/organizations in other categories focus primarily on coders and training them, software support companies recruit, train and supply support engineers.

Spotlight: Tek Experts
Tek Experts officially launched in Nigeria in 2018. In partnership with Microsoft, it set up a world-class customer service and a technical support centre in Nigeria. It is a global provider of business and IT support services and a developer of technologies that enhance the customer experience. Tek Expert’s services include deep technical software support, customer success, and professional services.

“We provide technical support and IT services to global IT companies that roll out services and products,” says Ashim Egunjobi, Head Of Business Development, Africa at Tek Experts. One of its major clients is Microsoft and its engineers support some of its technologies.

Tek Experts recruits and trains young people to become technical support engineers. Its training program comprises both physical and virtual instructor-led training focused on both soft and technical skills. Its training  program became virtual-first because of the coronavirus pandemic

“Part of the work we do is to be part of the process where we train world-class technical support engineers to be able to do their jobs. We cover the whole range from soft skills to specific technical trainings to introduction to the technologies we support,” Adeyemi Adelekan, Tek Experts’ Site Learning and Development Manager explains.

 “Our training is so robust, it takes into consideration every single step a person needs to take before they become a world-class technical support engineer,” Adelekan concludes.

Tek Experts currently has about 1,300 engineers in Nigeria and over 6000 employees across 6 countries, supporting clients across the globe. More trainees have gone through its program and worked with the company as technical support engineers.

The Future of Nigeria’s Technical Talent Landscape

Beginning with Andela’s pivot to hiring and supplying senior developers while local companies like Decagon continue to create them, Nigeria’s technical talent landscape is redefining itself. The local demand, as well as competition, will largely impact the future of the sector. One major theme has been the export of locally trained developers abroad.

As the developers minted in the last five years advanced their skills and built their portfolio, they’ve been able to find lucrative jobs in Germany, Canada and other countries. The migration of these developers has an impact on the quality of talent available at home. The key challenge is how the sector can quickly create and grow the talent required to meet local demand.

“When we first started Lagos Innovates and we were talking about talent, one of the things that came up was that if we train all these people and they move to Canada or take remote jobs from foreign companies, how will that contribute  to the state’s tax base?” Tosin Faniro-Dada, explains. 

“Our argument was that it is our job to ensure that the ecosystem is viable and rewards them enough to stay in Nigeria. We need to show them that we value them and their skills,” Faniro-Dada added.

Asides, global competition for talent, new types of jobs and work format will define the sector’s future. Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and blockchain mean that new skills will be needed. For example, the need for data scientists has bred a new set of local training companies focused on providing those skills. The ongoing health crisis has also accelerated the rise of remote work. Remote work will rise as the default job format. This introduces new dynamics. 

“For the future, I believe collaboration tools and technologies that foster remote work are going to gain momentum,” Ashim Egunjobi says. “AI, machine learning, natural language processing platforms are going to gain momentum too and will be important for companies to more efficiently and effectively recruit and grow ,” she concludes.

As more products/services continue to enter the market, there might be an increase in the need for more technical support engineers to maintain and resolve deep technical issues as it relates to the products and its customers. One can expect a year on year increase in this IT segment. 

“Within the next 5 years, Tek Experts Nigeria expects to have about 2000-3000 technical support engineers in its employment,” Egunjobi tells TechCabal.

While demand for talent is expected to grow, justifying the sector’s essence, it will need to overcome some challenges. These challenges include infrastructure namely broadband access, power and credit.

To solve the problem, training companies and initiatives including LSETF’s, are creating their own loan programs. However, improving credit infrastructure will help technical talent companies focus on their core business.

A lack of access to affordable broadband also means that lower-income individuals can’t access training programs and job opportunities. In addition to infrastructure, the sector also requires government support to scale their programs.

“The most important thing here is that we must have policymakers who understand the need to continue to leapfrog so that we can catch up. If you compare say Nigeria or Kenya or Rwanda with countries in Asia such as Taiwan or Japan, who are hugely technologically advanced; we have a lot of leapfrogging to do,” Egunjobi says. 

“This starts with infrastructure and continuous education and unless we invest in both areas, we are going to continue to see brain drain and challenges with competing globally,” she adds.

Although Nigeria’s technical talent landscape has made significant progress in the last two decades, its future lies ahead. It will be defined by the global competition for talent, demand for new skills, policy support and infrastructure development.

*While we’ve put together a list of some of the key players, it is not an exhaustive list of players in the space.

Download the full article in PDF format here.

In 2001, about two decades ago, Chika Nwobi, an investor in some of Nigeria’s earliest internet startups attempted to hire a developer. 

He had founded MTech Communications, a mobile content company and successfully pitched MTN a technical solution that could make email and websites available to their subscribers on their mobile phones. The challenge was how to build as there were hardly any developer communities or software training companies.

After trying to find a developer without success, Nwobi ran into a fresh graduate, Oletu Godswill who had never even written commercial-quality software. However, Godswill had been training himself in software engineering using internet access at the local ISP where he was working as a network engineer. Six months later, Godswill joined MTech, self-taught and built MTN MLife — the first mobile content and email service in Nigeria using open source tools. 

Nwobi’s account and Chukwuemeka Afigbo’s now popular article I de find developers (Boiling The Ocean), highlight the growth and development of Nigeria’s technical talent landscape; the community of people who have computer and information technology skills and occupations. 

However, the history of Nigeria’s technical talent sector goes way into the 90s and even earlier.

While finding developers still remains a challenge owing to the global and local competition for talent, there’s a growing technical talent community and industry. The technical talent industry as we know it today was built by developer communities, training companies, corporate organizations, indigenous ICT companies and though relatively less-mentioned; software support companies.

A Historical Timeline
Any attempt at writing the history of Nigeria’s technical landscape will at best be controversial. But there are a few historical pointers and records. 

One of the earliest semblances of a technical talent training initiative was the IBM African Education Centre set up at University College, Ibadan in 1963. 

During the dedication of the centre, Arthur K Watson, Chairman of the Board of IBM World Trade Corporation said the purpose of the initiative was “to provide a source of education for the potential leaders of industry and governments in Africa.” 

It served as an IBM training centre for students from all over Africa between 1963 and 1966 and in 1966, the centre was renamed UI Computing Centre.

It wasn’t until 1972 that computer science courses were introduced at major Nigerian universities including the University of Lagos, University of Ife, and University of Ibadan. In 1975, more universities introduced computer science courses.

70s – 80s

Software support defined the early years of Nigeria’s technical talent landscape. Some of these skills were first honed or transferred in the oil and gas industry in the 70s.

The oil boom of the 70s ushered in oil and gas companies including Schlumberger; one of the world’s leading suppliers of technology and information solutions to customers working in the oil and gas industry globally. 

It incorporated in Nigeria in 1970 and before then, reportedly logged the first and oldest oil well in the country in 1956.

The computers and software used in the early years were mainly imported and primarily operated by foreigners or in rare cases; locals trained to use them. Since locals didn’t need to create software from scratch, they primarily gained software support skills.

By the 80s, indigenous software companies started to emerge. 

The Computer Association of Nigeria (CAN) was inaugurated around this time and computer vendors including Data Science, JKK, Datamatics, and Debis were established. 

Their emergence was jump-started by indigenised banks created as a result of the 1977 indigenization decree. The decree saw over 1,000 companies nationalized. 

These banks and the software companies that served them became breeding grounds for people to develop software support skills including desktop publishing. In many cases, the software used was imported or custom-built abroad. 

90s – 2000s

By the 90s, indigenous software companies had gained more ground sealing partnerships with global IT companies as software resellers or channel distributors. 

Their clients were mostly financial institutions and public institutions who were looking to digitize and needed enterprise applications. This paved the way for enterprise software such as SAP and training institutions helping become proficient in them.

Around this time, the primary location Nigerians imported software or sourced technical talent from was India. By the late 90s, India training institutions including NIIT began to set-up shop to fill the talent gap that existed. Some of these companies after a while started offering programming courses in Java, C#.

“In the past, when you think tech, you think Indians. When I moved back to Nigeria over a decade ago, the IT teams in the companies I worked for had over 50% Indian or South African nationals,” Tosin Faniro-Dada, Head of Startups, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) tells TechCabal.

Things began to change gradually with the emergence of indigenous software and computer companies.

The emergence of indigenous software and computer companies also sparked the organic establishment of the Computer Village; Africa’s largest ICT accessories market. 

Cloning had become a thing and training courses for programming languages were sold in CDs. Some self-taught programmers emerged from this period.

One major event that catalyzed Nigeria’s digital economy and ultimately the technical talent landscape was the award of GSM licenses. 

In 2001, MTN, Airtel and NITEL got licenses which started off the journey of making mobile phones and internet widely available. This further grew the group of self-taught programmers and birthed Nigeria’s earliest internet companies. 

Jobberman (2009), IrokoTV (2011), Konga (2012), Interswitch (2002), DealDey (2011) were some of the companies from this era. 

Although some of these companies initially depended on technical talent from abroad, they later became a breeding ground for local technical talent.

In trying to close the talent gap and in some cases out of passion, there were efforts by individuals and organizations to train technical talent. They started training initiatives in university communities. 

In 2011, Google launched its Nigerian operations and about the same time began building developer communities in universities and beyond. 

Developer communities including forLoop launched in the 2010s contributed to the growth of the sector. Also hubs, specifically CcHub, launched, providing a space and community for technical talent to flourish.

The focus in terms of skills, in the 2000s, shifted from software support to software development. Training initiatives and organizations focused on software support were dwindling in popularity. Organizations including software companies were training their support engineers in-house. Some organizations contracted business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to handle software support.

Andela’s launch in 2014 turned the technical talent landscape on its head. It changed the way technical talent got trained and commercialized it and also paved the way for numerous training organizations including Decagon and Semicolon.

“We have always had very strong local players in the tech talent industry but what Andela did was to change the game and start a new conversation around the value chain,” Eyitayo Ogunmola, CEO at technology education provider, Utiva says. 

“First, they took the conversation beyond training and evolved it into the post-training model for talent engagement. And then another key contribution from them which is forever a plus to the industry – accelerating the African talent development market to global investors,” Ogunmola added.

Download the full article in PDF format here.

The startup’s business is time-bound in a unique way. Cohorts of developers have to be trained within a fixed period, after which the company expects to start the clock on their tuition repayment.

That straightforward understanding of how Decagon is supposed to make money and break even will now be stress-tested like never before.

TechCabal has learned that the company recently acquired a new learning and living complex for 350 new students scheduled to begin their training on April 17. New laptops had been procured.

For every month that the students don’t begin their training, Decagon makes a loss on them.

Welcome to startup reality

Unforeseen circumstances can upend year-long plans, rubbish quarterly projections and condemn ambitions to hibernation mode indefinitely. Nothing personal, it’s just business.

Andela, Africa’s most recognised player in this sector, is undergoing a phase of mild convulsions. But they are pivoting to become what could be described as a ‘tech HR services’ company. When this transition is complete, they should have their head above water (though we will have to talk about the human costs).

When you speak to the new kids who are gearing to take over the reins of tech talent training, they are confident about navigating the present crisis:

“For our training business, where we have had great success with our intensive, in-residence approach to training engineers,” Chika Nwobi, Decagon’s founder, says to TechCabal, “we are determined that 100% remote is a temporary measure.”

At Semicolon, natives (as students are called) will continue their lessons remotely. “We’re somewhat thankful that the bulk of them are transitioning or have completely transitioned into the project phase of their training,” says Uzondu Uba, a company spokesperson.

Through online classes and virtual meetings, Semicolon’s facilitators will still be available to provide guidance to students.

However, these temporary measures are not without potentially worrisome effects. With the remote pivot, the learning model at these companies is effectively disrupted.

In the current mode, they are not a lot different from paid online course platforms like Coursera, edX or Udemy.

The absence of security

Decagon’s boarding facilities give the developers-in-training an infrastructurally predictable environment. Power and internet are guaranteed, as is the case at Semicolon (though students are not resident).

As many remote workers are finding out, these conditions are not a given when you have to work from home.

Nwobi acknowledged that Decagon’s ability to provide accommodation, high speed internet and consistent power is critical in enabling rapid learning.

Learning outcomes will probably not collapse at this point. But there will be a difference between being in the same physical space with your instructor and talking over Zoom with an unstable internet connection.

For Semicolon’s Uba, having to move so abruptly to remote learning has been a “major  inconvenience” that they are trying to overcome. Over 100 enrolled students are currently affected by this inconvenience.

In each case, not being able to count on necessities being regular will affect the pace of learning.

The effect of uncertainty on sustainability

Decagon’s training program lasts 6 months, while Semicolon’s runs for a calendar year. Founded within the last three years, both companies are more or less still figuring out viability.

They operate a similar revenue-generation model: train talents today and get paid out of their salaries when they get jobs in the future as a consequence of their training.

Decagon’s tuition is ₦3 million ($8,200) a year and repayment is spread over a maximum period of 3 years. Semicolon recently raised their own tuition from ₦1.8 million ($4,920) to ₦2.3 million ($6,280). For the aspiring developer in the world’s poorest country, paying after landing a job sounds fair and convenient.

But that is an assumption that works in normal times, when companies are willing and able to hire.

The coronavirus pandemic is producing shocks to global markets and Nigeria is not left out. There is good reason to ask: will currently enrolled developers find the jobs that will enable them to repay on schedule?

The other side of the turbulence is that if devs can’t repay, the companies could suffer.

Be ready to diversify

What does an insurance plan look like at this moment? The key could be for each tech talent company to also be a tech talent service company.

Decagon has such a vertical. Their digital product engineering service takes on client projects, which is why they retain some of the developers who graduate from the six-month training programme.

The service aims to connect the top 1% of Nigerian software engineers to global companies whose engineers will likely not come from first-tier recruitment sources like the engineering departments of Ivy League schools.

Nwobi says most of their clients are based in the United States “so the impact of going 100% remote has been manageable and our teams are fully engaged to support our clients through these challenging times.”

But it’s not like times are rosy in the United States, with the new coronavirus on pace to be a bigger outbreak there than China or anywhere else. That affects the economy and the work assignable by new clients.

It appears, then, that an internal capacity to wait this storm out is the only solution for the tech talent companies. Keep teaching remotely, grow their communities of competent developers and hope COVID-19 doesn’t depress market enthusiasm when they are ready for work.